Page 25 of Seduced

“Stop that,” Alexei said, his eyes fixed into the green ones of the urchin. He let the door close softly behind them and waited like that, seated on the floor, the boy between his bent legs. In a moment, the boy could breathe normally again. “Stop talking, stop thinking. Look at me. Look at me.”

The boy did; his eyes were all pupil and no green.

“Can you stand up?” Alexei asked. He helped the boy stand on shaky legs. His heart was racing, and he had no idea why. “Better?” he asked, and the boy nodded, not looking at him.

“Excuse me, Yer Lordship,” he mumbled. “I’m all aflutter an I—”

“We’ll have none of that, stop it,” Alexei interrupted him fiercely. “What happened to you to make you stop breathing? What did you see in there?”

“N—nothing, I…”

“Tell me,” Alexei commanded. “Are you in danger?”

The boy stood there, stubbornly mute. Alexei pressed on, he repeated the question.

The boy shook his head, shaking like a leaf. He still had a hard time breathing.

Alexei pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Tell me what you need,” he murmured.

“Leave,” the boy replied, taking a shuddering breath. His eyes shifted from the floor to the stairs. Alexei had seen frightened people in his lifetime; a lot of them. He had even been one of them as a child. Yet he had never seen such pure, unadulterated fear as what he saw on the boy’s face. “I need to leave.”

Alexei looked the little frame of the boy up and down carefully.

“Fine,” he said. “Go then. But Wilder shall follow you, in case anyone thinks to set on you again.”

The boy did not reply but turned on his heel, running blindly up the stairs.

The ‘boy’.

Finally, Alexei thought,I know what is wrong with you.

…

He took Wilder aside.

Wilder was back at his position by the door, looking sullen and in pain. There were dark purple bruises forming all around his neck, like a grotesque necklace on his flawless mahogany skin. Alexei grit his teeth.

It’s because of me he nearly died, he thought.

Well, it was because of Prince Nikolaos. But whose job was it to keep Nikolaos safe, tucked away in a secret chamber within the safe walls of the Underworld? Alexei’s. And he had failed. He was failing Nikolaos just as he had failed Peter and Valentine.

Well, he had helped Valentine in the end. But he had done very little—Valentine had saved the day himself.

“Are you all right?” Alexei asked Wilder as he approached him.

The boy was already limping away from the club, into the pale, gray daylight of London’s streets.

“No,” Wilder replied. “And neither are you. The assassins won’t stop coming until the prince is dead, you know that, right?”

“I do,” Alexei replied. “That will never happen.”

Wilder shrugged. “As you say, my lord,” he said, his voice thick with mockery.

“Might I impose on you,” Alexei replied, in much the same tone, “to follow that boy? I promised him protection as he once again attempts to make his way safely through the streets of London all alone.”

“Imbecile,” Wilder observed.

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